Marquesa of Misdirection
by Motsie of Atlantis
Summary: Deeks said it so well, "If Hetty is the Duchess of Deception, then our little Nell is the Marquesa of Misdirection". A Hetty in training? No, more, much more. A new breed of NCIS leader, without the manipulation, able to take responsibility for her actions and admit it - sorta, after all, she was trained by Hetty. A One Shot written for #NellAppreciationWeek for NCIS:LA Magazine.


**Marquesa of Misdirection**

**A/N.** This is a one shot written for #NellAppreciationWeek on the NCIS:LA Magazine's website. The story takes place during and after Season 5, Episode 24, "Deep Trouble". I want to thank G for continuing my education in more basic Russian for this story and V for helping me to visualize my dreams.

**A/N2:** Parts of this story are condensed from a longer story that I am writing about Nell Jones and other stories that I have already posted.

**Disclaimer:** Thanks to Donald P. Bellisario, and Shane Brennan, for teaching me to play with the fantastic characters and sets that they have created. Since I don't own them, they made me promise that I return them by their curfew. Although they might be slightly (?) battered and bruised, I did send them home. All the original characters that you do not recognize, are slaving away for me, trying to come up with an original idea for the next story that I might write.

**Marquesa of Misdirection**

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Temporary Operations Manager Owen Granger saw his number one political analyst, Nell Jones, on her way back to ops and asked her to come into his office. She had just finished washing her cup after having a tea break in the bullpen area of the mission.

"Jones, he asked, "do you know Hetty's passwords for some of her encrypted files here in the computer?"

Nell screwed up her face and held her right hand with its index finger extended under her chin, as if she was trying to remember for just a moment or two, then shook her head slowly as she said to him "No, sir, I don't."

The answer she gave the Assistant Director was technically true - she hadn't memorized the passwords, just so she could have plausible deniability in situations like this. But she knew where they were stored, and she knew how she could access them. But she was not going to volunteer that information to the Assistant Director, because that was not the question he asked her. And since he had made it abundantly clear to everyone that he wanted them to do everything "by the book" and not operate the way had operated under Hetty, until he asked the proper question, she would not give him the answers he was really seeking.

As she left and passed the agents sitting at their desks, she started to ascend the stairs up to her appointed station in ops. The young woman let out a long held breath that was so loud that even Deeks looked up at her with a question on his face. Nell shook her head in amazement as she breathed the words, "Dodged another one."

LAPD Detective Marty Deeks smiled and nodded to the little redhead. He knew exactly what had happened in her encounter with Granger. He made reference to that very thing when the team psychologist, Nate Getz, asked him to describe how he felt about the other members of his team during his first psych evaluation. When he got to Nell Jones, all he said was, "If Hetty is the Duchess of Deception, then Nell Jones is the Marquesa of Misdirection".

When Nate looked at him and asked him to explain, Deeks continued. "Our little Nell does not lie, because she can't do it well. She never distorts the truth because it goes against her moral fiber. Whenever she comes out and lies deliberately, you can see the color rise in her cheeks, the bigger the lie, the deeper the blush. That is why she can never play poker – her face will give her away. But she is intelligent enough to have a complete mental list of answers, that technically are not lies, but do not disclose any type of answer a person expects. The easiest one that falls off her lips is, "...Could be..." throwing the ball back into the other person's court without any confirmation or denial of the subject in question. So if Hetty is truly the Duchess of Deception, then our little Nell must be the Marquesa of Misdirection.

It was not just her exactitude with words and their definition that seemed to make Nell someone who shaded the truth. She also perfected the ability to blather so constantly, that those seeking information from her at the time would forget what they asked after trying to follow her thought patterns. She disguised it so well, always looking like the little girl that everyone dismissed because she was too young to really know anything, or blaming it on her ADD. She had worked on this defense mechanism throughout the years, and now she had it down so well it was almost an art form when one saw her put it into play.

**2003 - 2007**

Throughout her college days she constantly diverted attention away from herself. She could not believe that she got an acceptance letter from St. Mary's College of Maryland, a college she had never even heard of, much less applied to. Not only did they accept her, but they had a full scholarship package for her that even provided her with pocket money every month. When she called the college to tell them that they had made a mistake, she found that she was the one in the wrong. It was absolutely true, and they were eager to meet her and have her as one of their students.

Nell found that she absolutely thrived in this academic setting. Here was one place where she did not have to hide her intelligence; there were many people here that matched her IQ levels. For the first time in her life she could see her future as a series of endless open possibilities. As she sat down with her advisor, who was also an NCIS agent, assigned by Hetty Lange to keep an eye on her and several other promising young recruits, she thought it was to plan her course of studies. He started to talk to her about the oil crisis and how the major oil companies were looking for people who had her computer skills and knew the language and culture of the oil producing areas. He showed Nell how she could use her knowledge of Spanish to learn the Central and South American cultures and, if she could also work on her Arabic and middle East cultures, she would have a high paying job as an data analyst forever in the oil industry. She ended up with a double major, Political Science and International Languages and Cultures with a Public Policy Studies minor. As part of her Political Science Courses she did a semester study abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her original research senior project was a political science project that assessed the importance of international intelligence cooperation in countering terrorism.

Even though she didn't know it, it was her brain that caused interest in her by the many three lettered agencies of the government from her time in high school. She was unwittingly being groomed for government service. Upon her graduation, she found a recruiter from the CIA waiting for her to take off her cap and gown, before he presented her with a work contract to begin the very next week at Langley. She was quite surprised at the offer, but gladly accepted it. The Agency encouraged her to do grad work in the field of International Cultures and gave her some field agent training and worldwide access to their computer network. She gladly accepted everything they offered her, and worked eagerly on every problem that they placed before her. Her superiors showed their faith in her, twice sending her as a political analyst for a team that was "in country" in South America.

But as fast as Nell's expertise and analyst reports caused her superiors to look upon her with pride and satisfaction, it did not prevent them from sacking her later. They found her looking on company time and computers to try and find any adoption records and the location of Jessica, the little sister who had been taken from her.

And Nell did not hear the voice on the other side of the country, that almost shouted throughout the empty building, "Bugger, she screwed it up".

**2011**

When Nell poured out her heart to her psychologist later that week, he surprised her by telling her that he was transferring her case to some one else. She thought it was because she no longer had a job and couldn't afford his services. Nell's spirits fell even further as she began to realize how she was continuing to let her sister Jessica down by the things she was doing.

She met with her new doctor, a Nate Getz, who seemed to know everything about her. True, he had read her files from her former doctors, but there was something different about this man. He asked for no payment. After her third session with him, he gave her a slip of paper with a Los Angeles phone number on it and told her to call; that it would change her life more than any therapy could. She had nothing to lose by calling, and that was her first encounter with Henrietta Lange.

In that phone call the Operations Manager invited the young woman to fly out to Los Angeles. The older woman wanted to meet with the former political analyst to discuss an employment opportunity she had waiting for her. There was nothing that Nell needed to do except board the plane; everything would be taken care of, including the return plane fare if she chose not to accept the job offer. Eric met her at the airport and drove her to the mission for her meeting with Hetty. Nell could not believe the offer that was presented to her. The only downside was that she could not tell anyone the real work she did. She would have to think up some alternate job that no one would question. She accepted immediately.

Hetty then took her on a short tour of the mission. When they got up to ops, Nell almost began to drool at the sight of all the computers and networks that were running there. But then the Operations Manager turned and brought her crashing to the ground as she looked directly at the young woman and said, "Ms. Jones, these are government computers and are to be used only for official purposes. Do I make myself clear?" fully aware of the career ending incident with the CIA,

"Yes, Ma'am." was her meek reply.

After Hetty left, Nell turned to Eric and whispered, "So the moral of the story is - don't get caught?"

Eric was shocked at her question and turned even more pale than he normally was. "Don't even think that," he said to her, "Hetty knows everything. She can get everything out of you with her gorgon like stare."

Nell looked intensely at Eric as he turned his head away and said, "The same look that you're giving me right now."

But Nell had given her word to Hetty, and she would not go back on it. She would not use the computers that were in ops to search for her sister. She would do it only from the computer she had at home in her spare time. But she never said that she wouldn't copy down the sites or use the passwords she was given to access materials that were not in the public domain. As long as it wasn't done on one of Hetty's computers, she was still keeping her word.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

She had been hired as Intelligence Analyst and placed on Callen's team. Nell had worked hard for the past two years to show all of them that she belonged there. The team gradually accepted her, and gave her the family that she never had growing up. Nell still can't bear to have her team members know what happened to her as a child. Using the constant air conditioning needed to keep all the computers operating at optimum levels in ops as her excuse for being cold, she was always dressed in clothes that hid her physical scars, tights or leggings, long sleeved dresses and blouses, sometimes even a cardigan on top of that. As she ran her fingers through her hair, Nell was ashamed that the foster father who abused her loved to run his fingers through her long red hair, and that may have been the subconscious reason why she has had it in a pixie cut for so long.

**2014**

Nell sat back and tried to pinpoint just where the present operation first went wrong. Maybe it was when Hetty was recalled to Washington, to answer for what had happened in Afghanistan. Every one else had their own ideas why she had been recalled, but Nell knew for sure, because Hetty had told her. She had also given Nell the location to all of her codes, with the instructions that if she had not heard from the Operations Manager for twenty-four hours, Nell was to follow her final instructions that were contained in a letter sitting in a locked box in the bottom drawer of her desk.

She remembered how Sam questioned if they were supposed to investigate a suicide when they first saw the body Lieutenant Commander Steven Hill, an engineering officer formerly assigned to the nuclear sub USS Nebraska, come hurling over the Coronado Street bridge. Granger turned it into a pissing match and warned them that he was now in charge and their "little fairy godmother" was not around to protect them. His final warning to them all was that they were on notice because everything would be played "by the book". None of them liked the way he said it, as if he expected them to do their own thing that he could break them for it.

The Lieutenant Commander's death led them to Charles Anderson who owned a yacht building company. Drug dealers had forced him to design and build a submarine that could covertly haul drugs up from Columbia. Sam and Callen arrived first at the dock where the sub was berthed and started to check it out. When Deeks and Kensi arrived there, they found nothing, no Sam, no Callen, no submarine. Further investigation at the site produced only one black plastic bag with some sort of residue on it. A quick taste test showed it was not any type of drugs with which the two agents were familiar, so they took it back with them to the Mission to have it analyzed.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

After a short period of time, the techs at the lab determined that the trace material was ammonium nitrate, the same stuff that was used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Nell wondered if this also could be a domestic terrorist bomb attack in the making. But what could be the target? And where were Callen and Sam?

Nell made a quick call to Charles Anderson to find out how much cocaine the submarine he built could carry. He told her that they could easily pack three to four tons of drugs into the front compartment of the sub. She thanked him and then hung up.

Before going to Granger, Nell asked the techs how much ammonium nitrate would equal that amount of drugs. They told her it would be approximately the same. She quickly Googled the Oklahoma City bombing to see how much was used in that explosion and drew a shocked breath when she saw it was only two and a quarter tons of the material.

Nell used a burner phone to call Hetty but got no answer – she left a prearranged text for her to call Nell that would have no meaning for anyone else – it simply read ET.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Nell then placed a call to Steph Wilson, one of the political analysts attached to Naval Operations, US Navy Pacific Fleet in San Diego.

"Hey Steph, Nell Jones here, NCIS, Los Angeles."

"Hi, Nell, It's been a long time since we last talked. What can I do for you?"

"I don't know how to ask this. I may have a possible threat with a weapon of mass destruction that could be targeting one of your ships."

"Oh? Anything concrete?"

"Not yet. I may have a drug submarine loaded with up to four tons of ammonium nitrate out looking for a target. That could make a big hole in one of your ships."

"The Carl Vinson is back from the Middle East and is doing war games with the Nebraska, a new sub undergoing sea trials. Would that be a big enough target?"

"Ahhh...yup...it sure would."

"Can you get any confirmation of this, Nell? I don't wanna scare them with a false alert. If that got back to the general public, there would be a lot of panic in almost all the cities up and down the West Coast."

"I have nothing positive. It may just be what it was supposed to be, a submarine hauling drugs up from Columbia. Like you, I don't wanna start a panic. But I thought I would give you a heads up on the possibility."

"Thanks, Nell. I'll add that to our threats assessment possibilities. If you get any more information, please let me know, OK?"

"I will do. Maybe we can get together next month again for drinks. I think it is my turn to buy."

"That would be good. I'll let you know when I have the time off."

"Great. Talk to you later."

"Take care, Nell."

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

The more Nell thought about it, the more worried she became. It would be a fantastic propaganda coup if they were terrorists and they could pull this off in American waters. And the Taliban could claim it was pure retaliation for the air strikes flown off the Carl Vinson.

She went to the temporary Operations Manager and tried to show him the evidence that was bothering her so much.

"But it's all circumstantial, isn't it, Jones?" Granger asked her.

"At the moment, sir. But you know that sometimes these circumstantial cases become actual, and they turn around and bite us. I was worried if it would not be better to be safe and plan for this contingency, rather than being sorry."

"Until I see more evidence, we will have to play it as just a drug case. That is why the DEA sent us Del Campo to work with us. Since she has so much experience in this area, I was even thinking of making her the lead investigator for this case. Neither of you two wonder kids would have a problem with that, would you?"

"Nope. Nooo problem for us," she said as she left, wondering if he was always going to force the facts into his own way of looking at things.

Nell took out her frustrations like many of the rest of the team, on the firing range. She went to her station at ops and reached under her desk drawer and pulled out her baby Glock. She took it to the range and burned through two quick magazines of ammo, not seeing a regular target, but rather the Operations Manager at the end of the range. She thought about putting a couple of shots into the crotch, like Kensi did to rattle Deeks every once in a while, but since Granger was not here to see it, it would be a useless gesture.

Nell smiled when she remembered her first pistol qualifications at the Office of Special Projects. All four agents of her team stepped up to the firing positions. Each one set up the target and sent it to the back. They then loaded their weapons, donned their protective gear, and fired their loads. Pulling back their targets, they started to argue who among them had the best score. The only one not participating in the banter was Detective Deeks. The rest of the team looked at his scores and were sort of surprised at the low scores he had, considering that he practiced at the range at least once a week. He looked at his target score, and just shrugged his shoulders. All of them then cleared their weapons and started to take them to the weapon cleaning table.

Nell asked, "Is it my turn now?"

Callen looked at her and said, "Have at it."

Deeks asked her "Do you need any help?"

"Nope." was her reply as she hung up her target, and sent it to the back. She too followed all the safety precautions, checked where the other agents were, and then proceeded to fire. The first five rounds were fired deliberately and cautiously. The last five were in rapid succession, as fast as she could pull the trigger.

"Whoa there, Nell Bell. That's not the way to get a good score." Deeks exclaimed. "If you fire off rounds so fast, not only do you run out of ammo quicker, but you have less chance of hitting the target," he informed her as he pulled back the target to prove his point.

"You fired off ten rounds, right?" Deeks asked her.

"Yup," she said, "I emptied the magazine,"

"Well, that proves my point. There are only nine holes in the target."

"That can't be right. I know I didn't miss the target completely."

"Let me look at it," Sam said. When he examined it closely, he found that one hole was just slightly elongated. "Little Nell put two rounds in exactly the same place." he announced in surprise.

Both he and Callen were impressed with that. Kensi smiled and gave Nell a big thumbs up. Deeks just shook his head in denial and silently walked away, vowing to himself never to underestimate the little analyst again. He had been holding back on his shooting skills, and knew how difficult it was to attain accuracy like that.

None of them knew how very proud she was that she had been issued her own weapon and the license that proved she was required to carry it when she first received agent training at the CIA. It was only after she started to work at NCIS that she found out it was Hetty who was guiding her career. She didn't know all the favors Hetty had to call in to bring this about, but it had to be a huge amount.

Nell once had a criminal record. It was expunged when she turned eighteen and was released from prison, but she knew that if anyone, especially someone like Eric, would really dig into her past, they could find out that she had killed her second foster father when she was ten years old. Nell had done it to protect her younger sister from the same abuse that she had suffered at the hands of this man. She had admitted it to everything in court, because she swore to tell the truth. With her confession, there was no way that the judge could find her not guilty, and she was sentenced to ten years in jail. But would any of the members of her team understand how a sweet, young girl like her could kill someone in cold blood? This was another part of her past from which she directed people away.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(  
**  
Owen Granger announced that he was going to take an hour for lunch, but wanted to be called immediately if there were any new developments in the case. Nell saw this as her chance to retrieve the letter that Hetty had left her. She automatically went into agent mode, putting on a pair of black, evidence gloves so she would leave no fingerprints, opened the drawer, and pulled out the locked box. She reached for the small key that she kept on a chain around her neck and opened the box to take out the letter. Relocking the box, she returned it to the bottom drawer, stripped off the gloves and carried them, along with the letter, with her back up to ops.

When she opened up the letter she read:

Ms. Jones

If you are reading this then you have already had a disagreement with Acting Operations Manager Granger. You have been with this team much longer than he has. You know the strengths and weaknesses of each of the team members and have seen how they react in almost any situation.

If you do find yourself at an impasse with him, please contact Director Vance and inform him of the situation. I am not saying that he will give you the green light in how you want to deal with it, but I am certain that he will give you a fair hearing.

Good luck, my dear. I am afraid you are going to need it.

Henrietta Lange

_**My God,**_ Nell thought, _**Hetty sure has a lot more faith in me that I think she should have. It seems as if Granger has been around almost as long as Hetty has been and I have only been here at NCIS for the past three and a half years. He is a deputy director and I am only an intelligence analyst. And Hetty wants me to place a call to the Director and tell him that I know better than the person who might just succeed him? I need to get in touch with Special Agent Gibbs in Washington. He knows how to deal with Vance, and Callen trusts him as if he was his father. Maybe he can give me some idea of how to present my case to the Director.** _

Checking her computerized directory for the number of Gibbs' cell, she placed a call to the Washington Agent in Charge. As she closed off the page, her eyes were caught by another contact, four names down. Nell's mind snapped back to what she was doing as her call was answered on the second ring.

"Gibbs here."

"Agent Gibbs, this is Nell Jones, political analyst for Callen's team at OSP in Los Angeles. We've never met, but I need to run something by you for your opinion."

"It's just Gibbs. Know who you are. Callen speaks highly of you. Hetty also told me about you and mentioned that if I ever tried to take you and make you a member of my team, she would personally come and hunt me down and shoot me. So what is it you need?"

Nell's face had turned five shades pinker as she blushed upon hearing the praise Hetty had heaped upon her, but she wouldn't let that show to Gibbs as she continued. "We sorta have a situation here. Callen and Sam were on a case and appear to have gone missing. We suspect they are aboard a submarine that was built for a drug cartel, at least that is what Assistant Director Granger thinks. He is running OSP while Hetty is in Washington to testify on another, secret mission. I've tried to reach her, but she is nowhere to be found. I just need someone to tell me if what I wanna do is gonna work or if it is gonna destroy my career and get two agents killed."

"Why would your choice do either one?"

"Because I think the drug cartel is being run by terrorists and they want to make a statement by blowing up a US Navy vessel off the Los Angeles coast. Granger has said not to worry about it, because all the evidence I have found is circumstantial. He believes the submarine is going to Columbia to load up with drugs."

"And how do I fit in?"

"Hetty left me a letter that told me if I run into problems with Granger, I should take it to Director Vance, that he would give me a fair hearing."

"I've always known Leon to be a fair man."

"I just don't want to cause any problems for the team. If I'm wrong, I'll suffer the consequences, but I don't want anyone else on the team punished because I talked them into something I shouldn't have."

"All I can tell you is to go with your gut and do what you think Hetty would want. That's why Hetty left you in charge, even though Granger may be officially calling the shots. Always remember my Rule # 18, 'It's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission.'"

"Thanks Gibbs. Maybe I won't even need to seek forgiveness from anyone. I just might have found a way around all of this."

"Do what you can to get those two agents home, and if there is anything I can do to help, let me know. I sort of like the kid, but don't tell him I told you that."

"Thanks for talking with me, Gibbs. You will probably hear about how things turn out. Gotta run."

"Good luck."

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

While talking with Gibbs, Nell was thinking about an alternate way to rescue Sam and Callen. Unfortunately, she could not do it from ops without causing all kinds of problems. Since it was her turn to go out and bring in lunch, she asked Eric if he wanted his regular sushi order. Nobody else from the team was in the building, but she stopped at Granger's office to find out if he wanted anything brought back for him, even though Nell knew that he had just come back from lunch. When he said "No" to her plans for sushi, she left, but she picked up more than just lunch. She also bought 4 burn phones.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Nell took one of the burn phones and punched in a number. It was answered with silence.

"I would like to speak with Arkady Kolcheck please."

A heavily accented voice asked, "And who would like to speak to him?"

"Nell Jones, a friend of Callen."

"This is Arkady Kolcheck and I do not know you, Nell Jones."

"If you are really Arkady Kolcheck you know that I work with Callen, you know where that is, and you know Callen's first name."

"He has none that he knows of. He goes by the initial G. Now that you know I am who I say I am, let me ask you, Nell Jones, how tall are you?"

"What does that have to do with it?"

"Humor me. How tall are you?"

"Five foot one inch, or 154 centimeters, that is without heels"

"Now open up the video so I can see your face."

"OK and I will talk to you so you know it is not just a faked picture of me."

"Face is similar but there is a difference."

"You probably have a picture of me with a pixie hair cut. I have started to grow my hair out."

"OK, I can see that."

"Arkady, one final thing Callen told me to tell you if I ever needed to contact you, 'Ne udalos' Moskva, Operatsiya narkotikov' [failed Moscow drug operation]"

"Your accent is horrible, but I imagine the boy taught you to say it in just that way. That in itself would make me believe that you know Callen."

"You know him way too well."

"So what can I do for you, Nell Jones? You know that Callen is not here?"

Nell began to explain to Arkady everything that had happened, and who she thought was controlling the submarine. She pointed out that her operations manager didn't see things her way, but she was certain that it would become a terrorist act. Could Arkady use his influence and maybe they could do a back door, off the books, operation together to rescue the two agents and stop the terrorist attacks. Arkady offered her a few suggestions, and agreed to try to make it work, because he still owed Callen for saving his life in Moscow when one of those drug dealers almost killed him. Nell promised to send their best computer expert to work with them and ended the call.

Nell followed this up with a quick phone call to Director Vance as Hetty's letter had asked her and she promised Gibbs she would do. Vance immediately knew who she was, probably because of the backlash he was dealing with because of Hetty and Afghanistan.

Nell briefly described the problem she was having with Granger. She then listed the facts that led her to conclude it was now a terrorist operation. We have two agents who are missing and presumed to be on a makeshift drug sub. We don't know if they are captured or dead. The submarine Nebraska will conduct war games against the aircraft carrier, Carl Vinson, recently returned from her middle east deployment. There will be little or no defensive measures available because half of the antisubmarine warfare unit of the carrier crew was left in San Diego on liberty. Now what would happen if the drug sub were loaded with close to 4 tons of ammonium nitrate and would conduct a suicide run on the carrier? I have laid all this out for one of the political analysts attached to Naval Operations, US Navy Pacific Fleet in San Diego, so they should be aware of the possibility.

Vance was completely surprised. The fact that the Nebraska was leaving Naval Submarine Base Bangor in Washington and would conduct war games there in the Pacific was classified. "How did you find that out?" he asked her.

Nell told him, "I have my sources, sir. And when you add the clues that we have, a Lieutenant Commander Steven Hill, an engineering officer formerly assigned to the nuclear sub USS Nebraska, found tortured and dead, traces of ammonium nitrate at the dock where the drug submarine was berthed, and rumors of a major drug cartel joining a Jihadist group, what else can you come up with? Personally, sir, if I were running this operation through US channels, I would have satellite surveillance and sonobouys set up to help find the sub, and a team of SEALs deployed close by to stop it and rescue the agents if that were possible."

Vance sounded a little confused as he asked her, "What do you mean, if you were running this operation through US channels."

"Ahhh... Well... I sorta am working on a solution that doesn't involve Granger or any US assets." she answered. "You can go ahead and implement the recommendations I have given you, but...I don't think you really want to know what else I have set up."

"You have been around Hetty way too long. You're right. If I don't know about it I can claim plausible deniability. Thank you. If your plan works, I guess I will hear nothing more about it. If it doesn't, maybe a plan B needs to be in place. This is a decision I will have to make. I can't bump it up to SecNav because she was a political appointee, and has had no military experience. I sure hope your plan won't come back to bite me in the butt, like Afghanistan appears to have done with Hetty."

"So do I, sir. So do I" and Nell cut the connection and hurried back to OPS.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Before Nell entered the building, she took out all four of the burn phones and typed all four of the numbers into each phone. On one she added an address and then went back into OPS with their lunch. Nell called Eric down to the kitchen area to get his food and told him to bring his tablet along with him. She took her tablet out of her bag and started to write out her messages to him and asking him to reply the same way, erasing the text after it was read, so Granger couldn't find out what they were talking about.

Nell explained to him that she was working on a backdoor way to help Callen and Sam, but it would take his expertise to pull it off. When she told him that he needed to go out into the field, Eric was extremely apprehensive because of the bad experiences he had in the past. He remembered being frelted, and didn't care to experience that ever again. She promised that she wouldn't allow anything to happen to him and he finally agreed to do it.

Eric took the burn phone, grabbed his bag and went to Granger's office. "Sir, I am not feeling well. I think it was the sushi. The Assistant Director told him to go home rather than puke in ops.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Since Eric was sent home sick and they were in the middle of a case, Kirstin Chambers, the computer tech from team two at OSP, slipped into his chair, filling in for him as she often did when she was needed. Nell only had to spend a few minutes to read her into their present situation, since team two was being held on standby in case more agents were needed to back up Talia, Deeks, and Kensi in finding Sam and Callen. Nell told her what she thought of Granger's plan, and Kirstin agreed that he was being short sighted. But since they were "officially" under orders to do it his way, they did what was required of them, even though both of them had the sneaking suspicion that it would not amount to anything. Since Nell also trusted the younger woman as much as she did the other members of the primary team, she also gave her a quick run-down on what she was having Eric do, writing it down on her tablet and deleting it when done so there would be no evidence to find later. Kirstin became just another person assigned a part to misdirect the Operations Manager.

Nell really liked Kirstin. There was no one who could ever replace her biological sister, Jessica, or stop Nell in her constant search to find her. But since the little redhead had come to Los Angeles, she had gotten close enough to several women to consider them as her sisters. Kensi was the older sister that she never had, and Kirstin was the younger one that she had taken to her heart. These three amigos had been socially inseparable, although Kensi was spending less time with the girls and more time with Marty Deeks since she came back from Afghanistan.

Kirstin was hired about a year and a half after Nell had come on board. Hetty had taken the pixie aside and asked if she could take the younger woman under her wing and make sure that everything that they did at the mission did not overwhelm her. This mentorship developed into a close friendship between the two, especially since Kirstin only lived a couple of blocks away from Nell. They did a lot together, especially pub crawling, where each of them graded every one of the male patrons of the bar as potential prospects for the other as if they were cuts of meat.

One night, after going through a pint of ice cream and bottle of wine each, something Kensi had taught them to do on their "girl's nights in", they had just finished watching Kirstin's favorite movie, "You've Got Mail" for the umpteenth time. They then started playing their modified version of "Truth or Dare". Kirstin's final dare for Nell was that she set up an on line dating profile with a dating service. Nell giggled and told her that she would set one up, but it would be for her and that Kirstin had to do the same thing for Nell. Of course both women filled them out with the most rediculous things they could think of.

Kirstin posted the following for Nell and within a half hour there were five guys wanting to meet the pixie.

**FunAndLoveLA**

**About Me**

I am kind of a tom-boy. I love watching games and going out for beers. I like to be active and do lots of traveling in my free time. Looking for some fun.

**Likes**

Buffalo Wings Climbing/Hiking Poker Night  
Football Action Movies Pizza  
Wrestling Pole Dancing Running  
Travel Imported Beer

**Dislikes**

Rom-Coms Cosmos Mashed Potatoes  
Cats Spa Days Moonlight Walks  
Shopping Girls Night Omelets  
Shoes The Mall

Kirstin's profile was posted by Nell, and in that same half hour, there were nine men that wanted to hook up with her.

**LonelyLALover**

**About Me**

I am a stay-at-home kinda gal who loves to cuddle up with a good book or a good man. I love to cook but hate to work off all those extra pounds alone. Looking for help to burn off any excess.

**Likes**

LA Dodgers Reading Cooking  
Overstuffed Chairs Tanning at the Beach Chick Flicks  
Big Dogs Outlet Stores Soap Operas  
Mai Tais Skinny Jeans

**Dislikes**

Kitchen Cleanup Football Scotch  
Working Out Convertibles Boats  
Reality TV Cappuccino Rainy Days  
Bugs Firearms

Now the standing joke between the two of them was how many hits each profile had gotten and if there were any good prospects that could come from it. But it was no joke that Nell had mentally made a list of the real likes and dislikes in her life. There was one man she knew who met most of the qualifications of her real profile, and all the others were also rans. But she also knew that there was just no way in all the world that the two of them would ever get together. There were just too many differences keeping them apart.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

Kirstin was the one who took the call from Eric later that evening that everything had played out exactly the way that Nell had expected. Nell took the phone from Kirstin and started to question Eric.

"How are Sam and Callen."

"Tired, dehydrated, but generally good."

"Do they need to go to a hospital."

"Not from what I heard. They should be fine when they get back to shore."

"Did you get any visual proof of the rescue?"

"Am sending you a picture."

"Congratulations on a job well done. Go home and I will see you in ops tomorrow."

"Most of the credit goes to Sveta. She set everything up over here and worked long and hard to help make this happen."

"Sveta...?"

"Long story, but I will tell you everything tomorrow."

Nell printed the picture and took it down to Granger's office.

"Sam and Callen are safe," she reported.

"And you know this how, Jones?"

"We just got a phone call with visual confirmation," and she showed him the one bad satellite picture that Eric sent her. It showed the submarine sinking by the stern, the conning tower already awash, and two men on the deck of a trawler being tended to by several others.

"What is this, Jones? This doesn't look like a SEAL team hitting the sub."

"No, it's a Russian trawler and I suppose those are Russian troops."

Granger's raised eyebrow asked the silent question that she knew was coming.

"Given our relations with Mexico, how we keep running across their border as if it didn't exist, they didn't want us to be operating in Mexican waters. The Mexicans didn't want wrath of drug cartel to come down on them, so they didn't want to use their navy to try to accomplish the rescue. The Russians agreed to take this on because they also had a beef with those who were operating the submarine." She made a mental note to herself to change time and date stamp on picture to make it appear it was in Mexican waters.

"All right. Shut everything down and go home. We can finish this up tomorrow."

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

In the weeks to follow Granger gradually assumed more and more of the credit for the success of the mission. If there was anyone with whom he shared the credit, it was Talia. But every member of the team knew that it was Nell who had worked out the details with the Russians.

Granger finally must have talked to the wrong person, because Director Vance heard about it. He called and requested that both Granger and Nell appear before him in a private conversation up in ops. There he told Granger how things really went down and how it was Nell who prevented the submarine, turned underwater bomb, from taking out one of our aircraft carriers along with so many Navy personnel on Granger's watch. The more he spoke, the redder Owen Granger's face became, because this little political analyst had gone over his head and apparently told everything to the Director.

But the final straw was when the Director told Granger that he could have charge over all the other teams at the Office of Special Projects. But the primary team, Callen's team, was to be placed into Nell's hands. She would handle the day to day affairs, with the consultation of Vance, until Hetty is found and returns or a suitable replacement could be found.

Nell asked if Gibbs could be added as a person she could get to sign off on what she chose to do in the cases they took on. She noted that there may be occasions when time would be of the essence and the Director might be tied up on other matters.

Vance said that he could see no problem with that, but that she should remember that all of her decisions would be stuck under a magnifying glass and be reviewed constantly. He then dismissed the Deputy Director, but asked Nell to stay for just a couple of minutes more.

"Ms Jones. First of all congratulations on your promotion. I hope you realize that you are going to have to continue to work your butt off to do this job. This promotion is not entirely because of your last major mission. I have read all your files and I don't want to lose your mind to some other agency. To help you in your leadership training, I am going to have people from FLETC fly out here and give you individualized instruction. I figure that you will complete the courses you need in half the time it normally takes. This will help secure your position here at OSP or any other posting NCIS might want to give you. Hell, I expect that I will probably have to work for you some day."

Nell just shook her head and told him, "Sir, that is something that I really do not deserve."

Vance looked at woman who seemed so overwhelmed, "Let me decide what you do and do not deserve."

"Thank you, sir," was all that Nell said, her eyes starting to moisten with gratitude.

**)( )( )( )( )( )(**

When Granger heard about this, it made him even more upset and added another member of this team that he would have to deal with. He vowed that Nell had fooled him for the very last time.


End file.
